


Condesce: Be alone.

by Solitarysynonym



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 13:51:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5668342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solitarysynonym/pseuds/Solitarysynonym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alone on an empty flagship, the Condesce has a very long time to herself. Is it any wonder she turned toward steadily more nonsensical plans and a fondness for the shiny things in life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Condesce: Be alone.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rema (aetherGeologist)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aetherGeologist/gifts).



> Part of Ladypalooza 2015!
> 
> Prompt: Something looking into the mind of the Condesce, left alone in her empty flagship after the vast glub and taking that long lonely trip back to Alternia. We don't really get any hint in the comic as to how this affected her but it was a very long time in which she'd both lost everything and was entirely alone.

The Vast Glub struck the ship as a deafening scream that ripped through the minds of every troll in the universe, leaving more mundane screams in its wake. 

The Condesce froze as the dreadful psychic shriek reverberated through the ship, the ripples in the water of her bridge almost imperceptible but for the way her seadwelling minions began to wail. The clear waters blossomed with violet as her followers thrashed. At last they floated, the quiet current of the bridge swirling the dark clouds. 

Her hands tightened on the protruding pillars of her control center, feeling the thrum of life in her ship. She closed her eyes, reaching for her bond to her lusus. Gl’bgolyb’s glub faded away as she felt the persistent hum of the engines sputter and fade. The usual sounds of a working ship died away, fading into a silence as absolute as what she got back when she reached for her bond to her lusus. “No!” she snarled, keying in an open frequency to her ship and her fleet.

“All survivors contact me at once,” the Condesce ordered, grimacing as she pulled in water and tasted nothing but blood. She realized she could hear her own bubbling breaths as the last echoes of the screaming faded away. With a furious glub she swam to the connecting chamber and passed into the dry part of the ship. The hallway echoed with the sound of her boot heels as she stormed down to the engine room, stepping over the fallen bodies in their spreading pools of blood. She could hear nothing but the sound of her own breathing and her footsteps. Clearly the ship had dropped out of light speed but perhaps… perhaps her Helmsman still lived. 

Before she could get a grip on herself she was off and running, her footsteps a sharp staccato as she pelted headlong toward her engine rooms, skidding through the open doors on… 

No. Even he hadn’t survived. Her ability to extend his life had no bearing on the color of his blood, and Gl’bgolyb’s call could not be ignored. The Condesce’s boots splashed a little in the stagnant pool of mustard yellow. A chill ran down her spine as she gazed upon the darkening cables. Could the ship even run without him?

1 Sweep A.G. (After Glub)

Never had the Condesce been more glad that the annoyingly short-lived lowbloods had been replaced with efficient droids on her flagship. Her pride and joy was a beast of a warship that required a full crew to run properly and a helmsman to jump past the speed of light. Indeed her Helmsman had been powerful enough to propel her at unheard of speeds. A pleased smile tugged at the corners of her mouth before she remembered he was dead. Everyone was dead. 

At least the droids had cleared away the bodies and washed away the blood. Even with them working non stop it had taken more time than she had expected to get the ship moving again. The days of nothing had made her appreciate even the miserable crawl of auxiliary power.

She continued to send increasingly furious communications to her unresponsive fleet, left far behind in the mad dash back to Alternia. Their puny engines had been no match for her Helmsman but now she almost regretted the loss. Even knowing that her lusus’ Vast Glub had wiped out her empire couldn’t disrupt her feeling that some troll must have survived. Somehow. 

Curse the flighty heiress for failing their kind in this way. The thought of what punishments could be wrought upon the careless grub kept the Condesce’s spirits up. Truly the girl would suffer a forking for the ages. The Condesce had destroyed several unimportant control panels in an effort to vent her fury. 

Her empire was dead. Her people were dead. Her lusus was dead. Someone would pay. 

5 Sweeps A.G.

Kissing the Helmsman’s preserved corpse had become a part of her daily routine. Though she could not restore life, only extend it, the Condesce saw no harm in trying and that old grub tale about a troll prince kissing a troll princess to awaken her had caught her fancy. Sometimes she regretted her haste in the days after the Vast Glub destroyed her subjects. Perhaps if she had more bodies of a wider variety of the spectrum she could have had a chance to find a troll or two on whom her touch would restore life. Instead she had had them jettisoned like they garbage they were, but some days she thought wistfully that it could have been comforting to have more of them around for company. The ship continued to limp along and she had long since ceased returning to the bridge. Seeing the countdown clock displaying that she had another 607 sweeps before she would be in orbit around her home planet drained what little vitality remained to her. 

25 Sweeps A.G.

Her hair had grown to nearly fill her room. When she bothered to swim around it was like navigating through long grasses. She had grown adept at maneuvering to keep from getting tangled up but for longer than she cared to think about she had been floating listlessly, doing her best to think of nothing at all. With this much practice she had grown quite skilled. 

50 Sweeps A.G.

“It should be possible,” she said aloud to herself, using the heavy mallet to crush the former panel into a finer sparkling dust. “The mother grub may be dead but perhaps there is yet an egg. If my heiress has protected it perhaps I will let her live. Yes.” 

The Condesce eyed her handiwork critically, then gathered up the acceptably powdered glass and headed for the next portion of her project. The glitter crusted hallways sparkled as she passed through them, the gleam and glinting of it made her smile as she meticulously transferred her handful to the adhesive she had spread, smiling smugly at her improvements. Soon the ship would be entirely corrected. 

100 Sweeps A.G.

The walls of her control room gleamed. It had taken sweeps and sweeps to gild all of the surfaces but if there was one thing she had an abundance of, it was time. The gleaming gold reflected her floating form and her masses of hair. The Condesce allowed herself a smug smile at how good she looked and continued musing. No one knew better than her that the universe was a vast place and that somewhere she could find a new planet with new life forms and begin fresh. Her empire wasn’t dead, it just needed to be… reborn. First she would get back to Alternia and track down her wayward irresponsible heiress. Then she would hunt for an egg. At last she would search the ruins of her planet for any potential helmsmen before setting out for the nearest unexplored star system. It would take time. But that was something she had in abundance. 

200 Sweeps A.G. 

Reading had never interested her much before, but with several hundred more sweeps to go before she reached her destination, the Condesce had seized upon any new distraction. The religious claptrap of the highbloods had begun to interest her, with its reference to the great honk and nonsensical clown imagery. The religion was as nonsensical as it was integral to the hierarchies and she was determined to preserve the fundamentals of troll society on her new world when she found it. After all, when you will probably live forever, what’s a little time? She would remake them in her own image, crafting the traditional hierarchies and teaching each caste their duties and role in society. Highbloods and seadwellers and plenty of water. 

500 Sweeps A.G. 

It wouldn’t even be another Alternia, she told herself, swimming through the flooded lower decks of the ship. She would preserve all of her favorite parts like culling lowbloods and distract the highbloods with their ridiculous clown propaganda. Or perhaps it would be more entertaining to give the clowns true power. She chuckled to herself as she spiralled through the familiar glittering corridors. She had long since smashed all time displays save those on the bridge. After all, glitter wasn’t going to make itself.


End file.
